Hermans Theo. Norms and the Determination of Translation. A Theoretical Framework

Chapter in: Translation, Power, Subversion. — Multilingual Matters, 1996. — p. 25-51.The first step in the direction of the current preoccupation with norms in translation was taken by Jiri Levy, whose 1967 essay on Translation as a Decision Process viewed translation in terms of game theory and the practical reasoning involved in decision-making. The concept itself was introduced into translation studies a decade later by Gideon Toury, who deployed it as an operational tool in his descriptive approach. For Toury, translational norms govern the decision-making process in translating, and hence they determine the type of equivalence that obtains
between original and translation. He also distinguished different types of norms, and commented on ways of discovering them. In practice, Toury saw norms mostly as constraints on the translator’s behaviour, and he gave only a brief indication of their nature and broader social function.